Article on international game development

[SanadaUjiosan]

I don't usually enjoy reading articles on gaming or the gaming industry, because I think they're mostly crap and pointless, but I found this one interesting and unusually... well-put-together. I also have shared this sentiment for a few years now and like that others are at least talking about it. Makes me wonder which direction this goofy industry is going to go.

Hope it's not too boring

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/114/1144366p1.html

[dizekat]

On topic of japanese games... personal perspective: lot of people seem to be comparing my game (The Polynomial) to Rez. To the point of calling it Rez 2 (before child of eden video came out). I'm always like (but never tell that this way), what the hell? Europe had demoscene long before Rez, with a lot of demos coming out all the time, many of them very creative.
The gameplay is nothing similar, the visuals the only similar thing is that both are abstract, but being abstract, both are more different from eachother than from photorealist games, and i actually analyse your music, its not as if you can only play it with built in soundtrack.

Then that child of eden thing from same game designer, also comparison as if i was drawing inspiration there. I started my stuff before they started child of eden, i'm pretty sure of that, and half a year before they got a FIRST video out I had pretty much complete game (minus some technicalities), available as beta. I've released October 15th, they're still months from release, but marketing it like crazy. It can be claimed much more rightfully that child of eden is imitating me, at least that is a remote possibility whereas me being inspired by child of eden is not.

But no, Japan is so cool, and if anything is abstract and cool it must be imitating Japanese.

So. The mere fact that a game title or just the 'game designer' is Japanese somehow makes game seem superior or at least more original than anything it's compared to. Without any consideration for a possibility that Rez was inspired by demoscene, or that an earlier-started and earlier-released title can't be inspired by later-released title.

also for child of eden, it is a positive thing for me 'cause it's millions poured into marketing will boost my sales when they release it on xbox or whatever but not on pc. Or when people are done with it and want something with different music.

[Satirik]

So. The mere fact that a game title or just the 'game designer' is Japanese somehow makes game seem superior or at least more original than anything it's compared to.

i don't play any jap game, jap games are for consoles only, console games SUX so much ... some people love the jap games, but you really can't say they look more original than the other games, they're always making the same game over and over like the others, same for the manga, there are 3different manga story, and a million different manga/anime based on those, dunno what you like reading or who are your friends but you should change

btw i noticed a while ago that jap only buy jap stuff, especially jap video games

ps : i forgot to say that PS3, Xbox are for video games noobs (and often retarded), real gamers all play on PCs

[MidKnight]

As far as developer preference goes, I tend to feel happier about buying games that are made in the USA or by people in a developing country, because game dev is something intelligent, creative people can do to get ahead in a place that doesn't allow that sort of opportunity. The US can't really compete with China or India in manufacturing cheap shirts or somesuch, but we sure can out-video game them! Same is true for countries with tiny economies and developing countries which were hit hard by the recession.

Kind of a faulty argument, come to think of it...

EDIT: FTR, this rarely affects my actual choice in purchasing games.

[KingRaptor]

Gotta love the comment thread on that article.

Lol @ Westernophile gamers attacking Japanese unoriginality from atop thier pile of Call of Duty and Gears of War.
Lol @ Japanophile gamers attacking Western unoriginality from atop their pile of Final Fantasy.

In short, lol @ Internet gaming quasinationalists.

[Satirik]

Gotta love the comment thread on that article.

Lol @ Westernophile gamers attacking Japanese unoriginality from atop thier pile of Call of Duty and Gears of War.
Lol @ Japanophile gamers attacking Western unoriginality from atop their pile of Final Fantasy.

In short, lol @ Internet gaming quasinationalists.

it's not japVSwestern it's PCvsCONSOLES, and PC wins for sure, it's a critical test for me, when i ask someone what kind of game he plays, and he says he plays on a PS3 or Xbox ... he's a retard, if a game was designed for consoles and then ported to pc, i don't play it, i only play pure pc games or games designed for pcs and then ported on consoles

[Gota]

Gotta love the comment thread on that article.

Lol @ Westernophile gamers attacking Japanese unoriginality from atop thier pile of Call of Duty and Gears of War.
Lol @ Japanophile gamers attacking Western unoriginality from atop their pile of Final Fantasy.

In short, lol @ Internet gaming quasinationalists.

it's not japVSwestern it's PCvsCONSOLES, and PC wins for sure, it's a critical test for me, when i ask someone what kind of game he plays, and he says he plays on a PS3 or Xbox ... he's a retard

hey hey.
Some games are just better on consoles...stuff like fighting games, arcades, sports games...
But if anyone plays those a lot and is above 15 he is a retard anyway.

[dizekat]

well ya a specialized gaming computer is the retard's option. The split started in the eighties. There were cheap computers like ZX Spectrum which had basic and where you could code something useful (but also could play games), and gaming consoles that did nothing but games.
Nowadays, console is nothing other than an expensive, annoying DRM and a nasty marketing scheme. Consoles are sold at loss, making back the money multiple times from revenue share that console maker takes from the games. The only advantage of console is that if your game works on one xbox, it will work on any other xbox. The advantage that is negated by there being several consoles.

[hoijui]

if consoles are really sold at loss, it should be possible to bring them down by heavily promoting their use for clusters, or as cheap linux boxes.

for example, on ubuntu.com, you would have 4 different releases: desktop, server, netbook, xbox.
they would have to but extra hardware in to prevent that, or use so bad hardware that a PC would be unfeasible, or up the price. all being negative for them. so.. lets fight MS by buying xboxes!!

[dizekat]

if consoles are really sold at loss, it should be possible to bring them down by heavily promoting their use for clusters, or as cheap linux boxes.

Already happened on PS3.

[Wombat]

happened to ps3 ages ago. * ah fu diz, 3min*

side note, consoles are sold at loss (well they started to give any profit like 6 months ago). sony get their money from games.

[knorke]

if consoles are really sold at loss, it should be possible to bring them down by heavily promoting their use for clusters, or as cheap linux boxes.

i guess console makers must be carefull not to lose the fun, easy to set up etc image of their product.

[dizekat]

in particular US Air Force bought a shit ton of PS3s to use in a cluster, prompting an update disabling linux on PS 3.
My opinion: good riddance. That cluster of PS3s is environmentally unfriendly as hell. The plastic outer shells, discarded burnt or worse yet staying there blocking air flow increasing the air conditioning power requirements. The video cards (NVidia something), sitting unused due to a: impossibility of accessing them from linux and b: lack of drivers. Consuming some power. I'm not sure but i think some of cores also sitting unused.
Some honest company that could of have manufactured appropriate nodes at good price did not get the contract. All around nothing good.

[Cheesecan]

The only people I know who like japanese games are japanophiles who watch anime, read lots of manga etc. Let's face it jap games suck arse, they are plain weird, final fantasy is linear as hell and you just run around in some douchebag world populated by unrealistic characters as a guy with a huge gay haircut, really tight pants and a huge sword(no homo). That's reflecting the japanese manly ideal I suppose. Oh and the men all look like westerners while the women have typical asian features with dark hair etc. What the fuck is up with that. That said though silent hill 4 was quite entertaining.

Consoles suck arse. Yesterday I had to play COD at my bros house and it took 20 minutes for the Xbox 360 to update itself and do shit before we could start playing. What's the damn point if you can't just switch the thing on and start playing immediately? Consoles are losing the appeal that made them charming in the SNES days, now they are simply becoming inferior PCs. Oh and playing any fps on a Xbox360 sucks, you can't aim for shit and all that counts is reflexes(who can start pressing the button to fire aimlessly first).

[Satirik]

the only playable console with good games are nintendo ones with nintendo games

[Machete234]

The only people I know who like japanese games are japanophiles who watch anime, read lots of manga etc. Let's face it jap games suck arse

Thats really all that needs to be said about nintendo.

The wii or all consoles after the n64 were not impressive at all.
When I saw the wii in action I just thought "What? This costs money and somebody pays for that?"

[SanadaUjiosan]

The real issue here isn't really PC vs console. Not sure why everyone jumped on that boat. There are occasional Japanese-developed PC games. They just rarely get outside of the country because they're rarely huge hits.

I just found it interesting that the gaming environment I grew up in is slipping away and may disappear almost entirely. I personally believe Nintendo will always have some foothold in the States/Western countries. Mario, Pokemon, and the other franchises are just too well known.

[Cheesecan]

The article says it's not slipping away over there, japanese ppl are still largely only playing japanese games, so they will always be producing those for themselves. Maybe they will emerge as more appealing to the west after some time. Think about The Ring and other jap movies that were incredibly popular as remakes in the early 2000's. That business kind of died down now but it was the shit when it first started.

I think there was a generational gap between Z64 kids in the west and NES/SNES/PSX generation playing mostly made in Japan-games. It could be that Japan makes a comeback in a few years..who knows.

[SanadaUjiosan]

I guess the way I see it is that back in the NES/SNES days, Japan controlled the market because Western developers messed up with that big video/computer game bubble that burst in the 80's... Japanese games were new, interesting, different, ect.

Nowadays, Western developers are making more and more games that acutely interest Western players. Now that the West is doing it in a way that completely lines up with... "Western sensibilities", the need for Japan is diminishing. I don't doubt at all that Japan will continue making games until we all die. I am more wondering about how long Western consumers will be seeing a lot of them in stores.

I myself have grown up from my JRPG days. Seeing a dude with spiky hair and a big sword on the cover of a game doesn't grab my attention very much. But neither does some guy in camo with an M16. I guess I just want games that I think look interesting, and if they're from Japan, cool.

[Johannes]

Nowadays, Western developers are making more and more games that acutely interest Western players.

Really?